Hajja Salesjana November December 2017

9 Yes, we are all called to become saints. That simply means becoming the very best person each of us can be, choosing virtue over vice, and corresponding to the graces God gives us moment by moment. Vatican Council II gave us a whole chapter on this, “The Universal Call to Holiness” [ Lumen Gentium , Chapter V]. It is magnificent. April 27, 2014, on Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church added two new stars to the constellation of saints, St. John Paul II and St. John XXIII. We celebrated with a “Pope Party” at St. Joseph Campus on Divine Mercy Sunday. I thought, yes, this is right. This is the way we are meant to be. Happy. Filled with life to the brim and overflowing and living simply in accordance with God’s law. My whole being shouted “YES!” It’s a shame that we don’t find too many times to celebrate life so wonderfully in today’s world. What blessed times we live in. Of course, I know that we also can say about our time in history, with Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” An example of this can be found in the wars of the last 100 years, atrocity after atrocity. Yet, concurrently, saints are living right here at the same time, in our same world. Some of them blaze with a light that streaks across the sky for all the world to see, like Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Saint Padre Pio, Saint Faustina, Saints John XXIII and John Paul II and our two newest Saints, Francisco and Giacinta Marto.  However, most are humble folk who you will never take centre-stage. That would not be their style at all. However, they would go about their lives quietly in their corner of the Lord’s Vineyard, doing good humbly and generously. Yet, in their small, hidden ways, they each shine with their own unique light making our world a better place simply by being in it. Remember the parable about the field where the enemy had sown weeds among the wheat? Should we go and pull the weeds?  No, Jesus says, “Allow both weeds and wheat to grow together until the harvest” (cf Mt 13:24-30).  Why?  It is not worth the risk of mistaking even one shaft of wheat for a weed.  And in the case of human souls, some who seem determined to sow weeds end up responding to grace in ways that shake the foundations of society, like Saint Augustine. In the darkest times, in the horrendous evil perpetrated by man, God raises up the Saints to give us hope, to lead us safely home to Him.  They are stars in the night. Perhaps their lights shine even brighter in the midst of such deep darkness, reminding us that God’s love is deeper and higher and wider than we can ever fathom or imagine. “…be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world…” Philippians 2:15 May each of us shine like the stars for all eternity!